Metro-North Railroad, proved wrong time and again on ridership projections, has continued to pour money into the Port Jervis line on the theory that someday, the riders will come.

This year alone, the railroad is spending $67 million to replace the line's circa-1940s signal system and $3 million to repair its circa-1900s Otisville Tunnel — all to benefit a weekday average of 2,000 riders, a number that hasn't budged appreciably in a decade.

And before the year is over, Metro-North will spell out its plans to build a second train yard somewhere east of Salisbury Mills, add a second track between Salisbury Mills and Sloatsburg and preserve a potential right-of-way for an eventual spur to Stewart International Airport.

A second yard and a double track will enable Metro-North to boost service at its busiest stations without the expense of running trains another 30 minutes beyond Middletown to Port Jervis.

Perhaps more importantly, they will also position the railroad for potential ridership gains when Stewart grows and when Amtrak's proposal for a second tunnel to Pennsylvania Station — and a one-seat ride from Orange County — advances.

Howard Permut, Metro-North's president, said 8 percent of the railroad's $4.6 billion capital budget has been spent on the Port Jervis and Pascack Valley lines since 1995, despite their representing only 2 percent of its ridership.

Most of that 8 percent, or $370 million, has been invested in the Port Jervis line, and most of it in the past 10 years, after Metro-North assumed maintenance responsibility for the 65-mile line from Norfolk Southern Corp. The Pascack Valley line, in contrast, is owned by NJ Transit and already maintained to passenger rail — as opposed to freight rail — standards.

"We are committed (to the Port Jervis line)," said Permut in an interview last month. "We intend to bring it into the same kind of state of good repair as our east-of-Hudson lines."

What spurred Metro-North to act was the prospect of a sustained increase in west-of-Hudson ridership following the opening of NJ Transit's Secaucus transfer station in 2003.

In anticipation, the railroad contributed $53 million to Secaucus, spent $75 million on new train cars and upgraded stations in Orange and Rockland counties.

Then Metro-North's cents-per-mile track usage agreement with Norfolk Southern for the Port Jervis line expired, and the freight railroad flatly refused to renew it on the same terms.

The trip wire was the requirement to maintain the line at a standard that allowed passenger trains to operate at 60 mph to 79 mph.

Norfolk Southern, which purchased the line from Conrail in 1997, had no interest in spending any money on maintenance — not when it was only running two or three freight trains a day through Orange County.

But Metro-North, thwarted in its own bid to buy the Port Jervis line, jumped at a 49-year lease with option to purchase.

"It's been a long time coming," said Peter Cannito, Permut's predecessor, when he signed the lease in 2003. "A great deal of Metro-North's success is due to the fact that we control the railroad "» this deal puts us in the same place as when we took over the Hudson and Harlem lines from Conrail in 1983. We now, to some extent, have control over our own destiny."

Metro-North immediately drafted a long-term plan to upgrade the tracks, signals, viaducts, crossings, tunnels and bridges. The conversion of the track to continuous welded rail, the gold standard for commuter railroads, for example, ensures a smooth ride, and the repairs to the Otisville Tunnel ensure that falling rocks and icicles don't damage and delay trains.

"I have found the ride to be more comfortable, and I have also found the service to be much more reliable, (except for) the months after Sandy and Irene," said Paul Campbell of Middletown, in reflecting on his 14 years on the train.

But Campbell would still like to see some of the ever-higher ticket and parking fees spent on such station amenities as bathrooms and better shelters from bad weather.

In 2003, Cannito estimated Metro-North would spend $89 million to bring the line into a state of good repair. But it has spent more, and will spend even more before it exercises the option to purchase sometime in the coming decades.

The rent, $3.5 million this year, is adjusted every three years based on the Consumer Price Index.

Ridership on the Port Jervis line, however, has remained stuck at roughly 2,000 per weekday despite more comfortable and more reliable service. More frequent service, Permut said, will follow when ridership justifies it.

The Secaucus transfer didn't provide the projected 1,000-a-day bump over the past decade, in part because of how commuting patterns changed after 9/11. The Great Recession subsequently claimed a disproportionate number of riders, many of whom had jobs in the financial industry in Lower Manhattan.

Then Metro-North saw two prospects for one-seat rides to the city from Orange County evaporate: one when NJ Transit's tunnel project, the precursor to Amtrak's, was canceled, and the other when its plan to extend the Port Jervis line over the new Tappan Zee Bridge collapsed.

Finally, Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy disrupted service so severely for so many months that commuters simply jumped ship.

"Several people I know became fed up after the storms and switched to taking the bus or driving," added Campbell.

"On my return trip, I always get a seat. That was not the case two or three years ago."